IDEMIA announced yesterday that its OneLook™ device earned top scores in the 2018 Biometric Technology Rally, hosted by the Department of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Directorate (S&T). OneLook is a multimodal biometric system that incorporates both iris- and facial-recognition technology.

While multimodal biometric systems provide an enhanced level of authentication required in high-security environments, they are also useful for practical and cultural reasons, according to Teresa Wu, vice-president, Strategic Marketing and Product Management at IDEMIA.

“Creating an entire iris database in the US isn’t practical,” Wu explained to APEX Media at FTE Global, noting that the US already has a database of passport photos to reference. “However, in other countries, some women can’t expose their face while traveling, so iris scanning offers a culturally inoffensive way to capture biometrics.” In other words, different biometric systems serve different needs, so offering a variety of options (facial recognition, iris scanning and fingerprinting, for example) ensures that as many travelers as possible are able to be authenticated using the technology.

Five of the eleven companies that participated in S&T’s first Biometric Technology Rally, held in March 2018, entered multimodal systems, while the rest entered unimodal facial recognition systems. OneLook was the only multimodal system that scored among the top three systems tested at the rally. It achieved the highest user satisfaction rating (93%) among multimodal systems and it was the only multimodal system that met the rally threshold of obtaining a less than 5% “failed to acquire face images” metric. OneLook also registered the second best transaction processing time (under nine seconds) among the multimodal systems.

“The outstanding performance of OneLook at the Biometric Technology Rally continues IDEMIA’s over four decades of leadership in the industry and is a testament to developing the best available solutions for public security, civil identity and border control challenges,” said Donnie Scott, senior vice-president, Public Security for North America at IDEMIA.

IDEMIA’s OneLook technology is currently being deployed in airports, according to Wu. “OneLook can capture travelers’ face and iris data at the same time and it will enable verification of additional travelers identity documents,” she explained.

IDEMIA’s MFace unimodal facial recognition technology is currently being used at Singapore’s Changi Airport and in the US Customs and Border Protection’s biometric entry and exit pilot testing. It was designed for a self-service environment, with two cameras that allow it to capture people of various heights.